Perhaps the least important of these in the United States, at least, was in the impact that airplanes had on war. By the 1930s, militaries were planning the use of large bombers against civilian targets. This was seen in the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War. The military value of airplanes was also seen in the invasion of Poland at the end of 1939. In this way, airplanes made life more dangerous for people in countries at war and more potentially frightening even for those whose countries were not then fighting.

Airplanes’ biggest impact on the everyday lives of Americans was in their ability to carry mail. The advent of air mail in the United States allowed for quicker delivery of letters and packages at a time when mail was very important to people.

The final impact of airplanes was largely on people’s imaginations. There were many airlines in the United States in the 1930s that carried passengers. However, air travel was nowhere near as affordable and common in those days as it is now. The airplane, then, did not really allow regular people to fly places in real life, but it did help to allow people’s mental horizons to be expanded. People could imagine much bigger things now that airplanes were becoming more and more common.